I need a parkflier. Looking at the Airfoilz full fuse yak or cap. Suggestions welcome. My question is, which of the billion brands of motors, esc's, batterys, ect, am I supposed to use. I am completely lost on motor selection. What would be some good combo choices and help me understand what makes them good. Cheaper the better, but I like to know I have quality everything. I have a FMA Cellpro charger from a couple years ago. It was barely used as electric never "took off" for me. Hopefully I can still use it.

I like to recommend [link=http://flbeagle.rchomepage.com/software/webocalc_1.05/html/webocalc_imperial.html]WeboCalc[/link] to people in your position. Read the excellent "Help" section for an overview of the program. Just plug in your plane's vital statistics and the type of motor you are planning to use, and you can easily calculate the amount of current you will need to fly a given plane to the desired level of performance.

Once you know how much current you will need, select a battery, ESC and motor that is rated to handle this amount of current. The components tend to get physically larger as their current ratings increase. Very generally, each 1 oz. of motor weight (about 28 grams) can safely handle about 100 watts of electrical power input (Watts = Supplied battery current in amperes x Battery voltage in volts). Also very generally, each pound of airplane weight will need about 100 watts of input power for reasonable flight performance. More power is needed for higher performance (3D, high speed precision aerobatics, etc.). WeboCalc lets you fine tune and "what if" this relationship to arrive at a very close estimate of what you will need.

As you say, there are many brands of batteries, motors and ESCs, but they all do the same things and for the most part, fairly well. The most important thing is to select the components that are correctly rated for your application. If they are correctly rated, your power system will produce excellent power (approaching 1:1 or better) without generating excessive heat (not much beyond warm to the touch). Excessive heat will destroy power system components and is completely avoidable.

You will be told time and again to use a wattmeter to measure how much power is being consumed, usually at full throttle. This will let you verify that you are operating within the safe limits specified by the manufacturer. Two of the most direct ways of adjusting how much power is consumed is by varying propeller size and pitch and raising or lowering motor Kv (rpm/volt). For a given power input, decreasing prop diameter and/or pitch lowers power consumption and vice versa, and lowering motor Kv reduces power consumption and vice versa.

To get a feel for the range of batteries, ESCs and motors available in one place, google Hobby City. Armed with the correct specifications, you will be able to select many combinations that will do an excellent job.